4 Smart Uses of Chatbots

Shared Account -
August 18, 2017

What can you do with a Chatbot? Discover how a simple computer program can become a powerful tool for your business.

You might think that chatbots are a new technology, but they have been around since the creation of the internet. So why all the hype? Chatbots are making a comeback because they are not restricted to AIM, they are now used on Facebook Messenger, Slack, and a bunch of other platforms.

Chatbots are overtaking other tools like mobile apps because they are way cheaper to build. And the coolest thing is that they can be used as a shopping assistant, as a CRM, and as a brand ambassador.

Let me show you how:

Use a chatbot as a shopping assistant

What’s the easiest way to order food from a restaurant? On the phone? On their site? On their app? Nope, not even close, on a chatbot.

Food bots are able to chat with you through Facebook Messenger and help you order on the go, wherever you are. The best part is that they could help you find new restaurants that you have never even heard of.

For example, BellyHungry is a chatbot with the option of searching for a food dish that you like. Let’s say you are in the mood for a smoked salmon salad. The bot would be able to show you all the restaraunts in the area that have that dish.

The company is still small but they are slowly expanding to more restaurants and more areas.

Use a Chatbot as a CRM

Chatbots are more powerful than just displaying a menu or helping you order food. They can actually help you store all of your customers information and organize it for you, what is that called? Oh that’s right! A CRM!

One example is the company Chatobook that builds chatbots for restaurants. Once a user makes an order, everything gets recorded on the backend and the business can easily keep track of their sales.

Use a chatbot to display key data

Chatbots are not only able to connect to a CRM system but also integrate with your existing CRM and help you find the anomalies in your data.

The best bot for this is StatsBot which integrates with Salesforce and displays key sales data for you. For example, it could find the sales channel that is doing the worst this week and help you focus your energy where it’s needed the most.

And that’s not all. You can schedule reports via chat and web, notice spikes in your data, and do all of your data analytics in slack.

Use a Chatbot as a brand ambassador

Besides the obvious sales and data advantages of using chatbots, many brands use them as advertising, or brand ambassadors. Tommy Hilfiger launched a chatbot to showcase the model Gigi Hadid and the new line that they did with her back in 2016.

Another great example of this is Nordstrom’s chatbot. The company launched the bot for the holiday season back in 2016, to help shoppers to find gift items. This helped them boost sales significantly.

Recap

Chatbots are definitely here to stay. They are cheap to build, versatile, and extremely powerful.

You can use them to track key data in your CRM, to help your customers shop and order your products, and to represent your brand.